Claudia/Theories
Not Her Who Appeared to Boy In Black *Most, if not all, of the appearances of dead people on the Island appear to not actually be those people. Man in Black has admitted to pose as many of them. This includes appearing as Christian Shepard, who only Jack ever saw. This implies he has the ability to appear to only the people he so chooses. **Claire (in Jacob's cabin), Locke (in Jacob's cabin and the frozen donkey wheel), Sun and Lapidus (at the Dharma Barracks), Vincent (on the Island instructing Vincent to find Jack in the bamboo forrest), Michael (on the ''Kahana'' before it blows up), to name a few from memory, encounter MiB as Christian Shephard. ** She could be the smoke monster as she appeared to MiB when he was young. **It could have been his adoptive mother, who perhaps wanted him to join Claudia's people and eventually kill her. *** This supports the adoptive mother as being the Smoke Monster, or having such powers herself. **It is consistent with the Smoke Monster's ability to create a convincing apparition if the person's actual body lies on the Island. *** 'Claudia' does not immediately greet and console her son, having been parted 13 years prior. Rather she accosts him anonymously and only identifies herself as a ghost. **It could have been another entity all together. ** Mother appears to have done her best to pit the boys against one another by creating perpetual inequality between the two: Jacob has a name, MiB does not. MiB has a game, Jacob does not. Mother favors MiB more than Jacob, she dresses them in black and white, etc. Driving him to leave would be consistent with this strategy. Also, by driving him away she gets the opportunity to spy on the others. ** It is clear that Mother has access to vast destructive powers, because even if she had help from Jacob it is unlikely they could best the others by conventional methods. This would lend credence to the idea that she had similar powers as the smoke monster. Personally, I believe she somehow divided her power between the two children. Was Her Who Appeared to Boy In Black *We don't know for a fact that all appearances of dead people are impostors. When Hurley acts as the go between for Richard to talk to Isabella, it seems more authentic than other appearances. Her appearance to him on the Black Rock was more directly goal-oriented; there wasn't a lot of niceties or subtlety to it. Also, if both appearances were an impostor, why would Hurley need to act as go between the second time? **Actually I think that it's certain that some dead people are not MiB's impostors - after all there are at least a few (Mr Eko, Charlie, possibly others) that are seen by Hurley outside the Island (Hurley plays chess with Mr Eko's "ghost" at the asylum when Sayid visits him) - so they cannot be MiB as he cannot leave the island yet. *** How was Christian Shephard able to manifest himself to Jack Shephard off Island at the hospital. Was that a genuine hallucination or apparition, since Mr. Eko seemed to know that Christian would be visiting Jack. *** Aside from Miles and Hurley, there is nothing to indicate that anyone else has the ability to communicate with the dead in any fashion. ** The enhanced captions for 'Ab Aeterno' confirmed that the Smoke Monster took Isabella's form in the Black Rock. Acting "goal oriented" instead of having a tender first reunion was shown to be a manipulative device of the Smoke Monster, and is reinforced by 'Claudia' not identifying herself as Boy in Black's birth mother immediately. *It seems illogical that Mother would try to pose as Claudia to reveal MiB's true origin, when she's brought him and Jacob up all these years in seclusion for the purpose of taking over. We know for certain some dead people appear on the Island as Whispers, not as illusions of a smoke monster, such as Michael Dawson. Not to mention other dead people appearing such as Eko and Charlie Pace. Claudia could have well been a whisper. Like Hurley, MiB could see the dead for whatever reason. Claudia is a Vestal Virgin * Claudia can be a roman ancient Vestal Virgin. ** Her red stola is not consistent with the traditional garb of a vestal virgin, which was made of pure white wool to symbolize their purity. The Vestal Virgins: Sexual Status and Sacred Status, http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Classics/bcj/02-04.html She is Claudia Octavia *She was a Roman Emporess. She was a great-niece of the Emperor Tiberius, paternal first cousin of the Emperor Caligula, daughter of the Emperor Claudius, and stepsister and first wife of the Emperor Nero. :* The historical Claudia Octavia didn't vanish at sea. Her death, at Nero's orders, is well documented. She is Claudia Quinta * It has been said :"Around the year 205 BC the statue of the Cult of the Great Mother (also known as Magna Mater or the Cult of Cybele) was moved from Pessinus to Rome. Scipio Nassica was given the order to take all the married women of Rome to go and receive the statue when it arrived in port at Ostia Harbor. However before arriving in port as scheduled the ship carrying the statue ran onto a sandbar at the mouth of the Tiber River and would not proceed any further. They tied ropes to the stuck vessel and all the young men of the area were put into service. Using all their strength they pulled to no avail. They then called on Claudia to come up with a solution to their problem as she was the other person with Scipio that called the women to the port for the arrival of the statue. Claudia prayed in front of them and then with confidence she ordered that the ropes be tied to her sash and the men to step aside.1 Claudia then pulled and pulled until the vessel started floating again. She towed it out off the sandbar and into port. Needless to say, she instantly became a hero and had vindicated herself.2 The Temple of Cybele then went to the Palatine Hill in Rome." (from wikipedia.org) Claudia is a form of the smoke monster? MIB's mother was the smoke monster so she could transform into people who were already dead. so his mother transformed into Claudia and she made the men in black split from jacob so that she could make them rivales but it failed so she had to make the men in black kill his own kind, therefore making the men in black kill Jacob and therefore the men in black would become the new Smoke Monster, which is what mother wanted all along since he wanted to leave the Island but he couldn't. References